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Greenlee: Looking into the unknown

By Bob Greenlee

Posted:
06/19/2011 01:00:00 AM MDT

T here`s one thing everyone should know by now about Boulder`s "new energy future." It`s that no one knows precisely how much a municipalization scheme is going to cost. Not the seven or eight city staffers who`ve been working nearly full-time on it, nor any of the outside consultants who will receive a portion of the $880,000 taxpayer dollars set aside for their expertise. The reality is that nobody can know precisely how much the whole thing is going to cost and the question is simply unanswerable.

A recent headline in the Camera stated the cost for Boulder to commandeer and run the local electric utility system would be around $622 million. These funds would allow the city to purchase, operate, and retire the debt required to pull the whole plan together. That number is disputed by city staffers, consultants, energy and environmental advocates, and others who claim the estimate is way too high. The primary reason for the huge number is that Xcel Energy is making a claim for nearly $336 million in "stranded costs" it says it should be paid if the city decides it can`t live without having its own electric utility. The city says they would owe little or nothing. The amount in dispute is hardly a simple rounding error.

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If voters ultimately approve a municipalization plan the stranded costs will be one of many issues likely to be endlessly litigated at great expense to both parties. Many believe the full cost of potential litigation has never been factored into the equation concerning what the whole scheme will cost ratepayers.

Around the middle of July City Council must declare precisely what it intends to do as concerns putting something on the ballot this fall. Xcel`s belated proposal claims Boulder can achieve its lofty carbon reduction goals in just two years and will receive 70 percent of its electricity from renewable sources and 90 percent by 2020! That`s if the city agrees to provide Xcel with another 20-year franchise agreement, and a few other yet to be negotiated matters. "Not good enough!" cry the hardcore municipalization advocates. Perhaps their real goal is simply to get rid of Xcel at any price for any number of reasons despite the fact that Xcel Energy is one of the nation`s leading public utilities in providing reliable, efficient, and cost-effective renewable electric energy to its customers. For some advocates the whole municipalization effort is just an attempt to strip any profit out of an investor-owned utility. Profit represents corporate greed and corporate power that are never in vogue with a certain segment of the local population.

Many people believe the city will never put a long-term franchise agreement on the ballot. The entire concept of utility franchise agreements is somewhat anachronistic anyway because Xcel is required to continue serving Boulder customers no matter if they have a franchise or not. And who knows what the "new energy future" will look like in a decade or two? Chances are that evolving new technologies and expanded conservation efforts will play a larger roll in the years to come.

The most egregious part of the whole municipalization scheme is that those most directly impacted by whatever ballot decisions the council makes will not be allowed to vote on what comes next. Why? Because residential electric customers make up just 18 percent of total utility revenues in Boulder. Only they will vote and determine the outcome of whatever council puts on the ballot. Commercial and industrial users provide 82 percent of total revenues and these obviously impacted users are excluded from voting on whatever new scheme the politicians dream up. It amounts to the minority of those paying the bills being able to coerce the majority of ratepayers who are the ones most impacted by whatever clever manipulations result from the ongoing and contentious plans now being developed and debated.

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story